2008 retro specteo

What was 2008? It was more than ending a long-term relationship, graduating, going to my first funeral, turning 21 and finding a job in the "real world." It marked new heights in free time, meaning more time for self-exploration, or at least leisure time. And I've decided that I love reading enough to make a life's work of it. 2008 also marked new lows in my self-cynicism, such that I'm hoping against the conviction that I won't make it into the English MA program to which I'm applying. I'm not sure why I want to go back to school so badly when I think the current system is so medieval, and when I think that most professors do research for the wrong reasons. 2008 also calls to mind some roommates who were really messy and with whom I felt frustrated the majority of the time. And while I sometimes fantasize about living in my own apartment, I know that I would feel terribly lonely living alone. So, I'm still looking for the ultimate roommate! Here's to hoping I can do this non-creepily.

guys, I'm not the smartest

It's come to my attention that there are some people in the world who are smarter than I am. This shouldn't be a big deal, but I've defined myself by my above-average intelligence for quite a while, so it's aggravating to admit that I'm not the only runway light bulb in the bunch.

As is the case with most things I don't understand, I did a bit of research on exceptional intelligence. It turns out there are kids who teach themselves to read around age 2, just like Matilda (however, they do not have her telekinetic powers). They get bored in school and have trouble making friends (but then again, doesn't everyone?). Learning comes easily, so studying music theory and writing a symphony in a few months is just another hobby to them.

Learning doesn't always come easily to me. I have to really work at vocabulary in Russian (and English, for that matter). However, I do have a love for learning, and while I'm not quite in that upper 1%, IQ-wise, I'm still up there (despite having gotten dumber since high school, not sure how that happened). So I think I can understand wanting to study lots of different things, and feeling dread at the thought of doing the same thing for the rest of my life. And when it comes down to it, even improbably intelligent people have the same existential dilemmas as regularly intelligent people. Still, I should define myself in a way unrelated to my intellect, and then I wouldn't have these issues.

Okay, I'm going to go read a book to make myself feel smarter.

ethicality? is that a word?

I had an especially trying day at work the other day. One of our clients compared us workers to Nazi prison guards working in willful ignorance. While we're not killing people, I am pretty ignorant about what goes on at my workplace. Part of me doesn't care and says that I'm just doing it for the money and it's a good thing I have a job at all, but another part of me is concerned. I didn't know anything about my line of work before I started working there... so all I learned about it was from work - I could have a biased or skewed viewpoint and not even know it. I do know that my company is a struggling non-profit and sometimes cuts corners to cut costs, but I've tried not to get upset about that. The thing is, I don't understand why this client thinks I can really do anything to solve whatever corruption has grown into the system. I am completely helpless to change anything except how clean the building is and how detailed interviews are. Even if I knew enough to blow some major whistles, my company going out of business wouldn't change the courts and judges at all. Anyway, sorry to be so vague about things, but blogging about work is always a big neon DANGER sign.

since when is anhedonia cool

It's of some interest that the lively arts of the millennial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It's maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it's the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip - and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It's more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we've hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are out guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it's stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naiveté. ... Hal, who's empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes is) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and gerenally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile... (694)

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

So there I was, reading this passage, and I realized that it very well could be describing me. I know, I know, part of the cool thing about reading fiction is identifying with a character and then feeling good when this character succeeds, but I try to avoid that and be objective and all. And me trying to be objective says I strongly identify with this passage. So now my cynicism and jaded irony is merely a generational fad? I thought I was being real. I feel as disappointed as a child who has been promised a pony and gets a plastic idol instead. As disappointed as a rat formerly on a variable-ratio schedule but switched to extinction mode and has a really long stint of pressing that little bar without any reward (this was me trying to describe my disappointment instead of saying "words fail me"). My self-concept is ruined! ...oh well.

Embarrassment is likable!

Perhaps surprisingly, the momentary pain of being teased can lead to pleasure. During their 15 seconds of humiliation, the targets of teasing displayed common signs of embarrassment — gaze aversion; a coy, nervous smile; a hand touching the face; a head bowed submissively so as to expose the neck; and blushing. These gestures are ancient signs of appeasement that trigger a reconciliation response in most mammals, as they did in our study. The more targets showed these evanescent signs of embarrassment, the more the teasers liked them.

-NYT Times article, In Defense of Teasing (page 3)

This probably explains why I'm so endearing.

Experimental Literature for the blind?

Okay, great idea of the day: experimental literature... for the blind! "And this was the texture of her face *braille dot braille dot braille dot*" "And the silk had this texture... *blank paper*" It could be... really cool!

monologue with myself as audience

Ah, so writing this paper is easier to postpone than I anticipated (you know, the writing sample for grad school). I feel like I'm out of ideas, but really I should concentrate on fleshing out the ideas I already have. I'm a little worried that I'll finish it and think it's genius and then everyone else will be like, "obviously you haven't taken any college English lit classes!" But this is a fear I need to face.

I'm becoming more conscious of my wardrobe: I have gotten to the point where I know some of my clothes are just ugly, now I need to find replacements for them, which will probably take a while considering that a) I don't go shopping a lot and b) I'm not just full of money right now (also my weight is in a state of flux? My job is seriously horrible for me controlling what I eat). But I think if I were to say I was going for a certain style, it would be European (that sounds better than old-manish or geriatric). Speaking of being like an old person - I have been sleeping like 10-12 hours every night this break. No wonder I'm like, "where did my day go?" I'm not sure if that qualifies for hypersomnia or not (especially if I can wake up earlier if I want to). Sleeping just seems more fun than most of the things I do.

indifference

Ataraxy

feels like an empty glass
about to go though the wash
a long silence
no one breaks
a passionate poem -
untranslated
or an unopened
love letter.

Mirror's Edge

Dude, if I were more of a hard-core gamer I would be all over Mirror's Edge. According to Wired, it effectively hacks proprioception, meaning that when you run, you as a gamer feel like you're running. Unfortunately the game is from EA and has gross DRM malware. You know what that means. I still have to beat Chrono Trigger, FFVII, and Beyond Good and Evil (oh, and I haven't even started Deus Ex).

See youtube for gameplay shots.

Anarchism disappoints

Here is my newest website find: http://www.alibris.com/. They have used books for way cheaper than the Amazon marketplace, usually. I totally bought 5 books from them the other day (and they'll be cool old paperbacks, too).

I recently re-watched "Fight Club." Unfortunately Provo fight clubs have been outlawed, so I can't go watch it live (however consusual fighting is not against the honor code, in case you were wondering). Besides the psychological contortionism that the plot requires, I'm intrigued by, well, the anarchism. I think it's one of those things (breaking rules, petty vandalism, blowing things up) that feels so cool and fun in the moment but never accomplishes things. So the thing I need to do is find something that feels cool and accomplishes something. Perhaps - anarchistic service? Oh wait, I already write for the Board! I guess I'll just continue in my poor consumerism. Why am I such a tool?

Also, I wonder if Palahaniuk (author of the book Fight Club) had some inspiration, say, from all the existentialist philosophers that preceded him? Beckett's "Ohio Impromptu" also uses a hallucination character.

my little slaves

I think I'm coming down with something. Basically I'm friggin' cold all the time and all I want to do is sleep. Also: I never, ever want to get a messy divorce after seeing all the unhappy divorced people at work and their kids. Granted, I only see the high-conflict divorces, but still, talk about inconvenient/a major pain in one's life.

So being tired for unknown reasons I've had a lot more of those moments when I suddenly feel like, unreal, that I'm just a pair of eyes and my hands don't even belong to me. You know what I'm talking about - minor, everyday dissociation kind of thing. I wonder how paralyzed people feel about their bodies? I mean, I can move my hands and sometimes they feel like they're not me but my little slaves.

Also, I've decided that some day I want to learn contact juggling, or at least some slight-of-hand. It would be so useful. Do you know of any good primers? I should spend some time on youtube. Or maybe I could figure it out myself?

irrelevent

Everything seems irrelevent, but not in a bad way. Years from now no one will care what books I read or what movies I saw. But in the moment I read them, it makes me appreciate beauty at times, at other times crudeness or sadness. So it matters, in that I feel art helps me be more broad-minded, at least emotionally, but at the same time maybe some other things are more important.

But is it the moment's joy that matters, or how I'll feel looking back on it? Will I remember how important I thought these things are?

Fun times

Sometimes I worry that I'm not interested enough in literature to pursue a master's in it, but then I spend a few hours reading criticism about Bend Sinister, and it just seems fun, and it makes me worry a bit less.

I feel like there's a lot of hero-worship that goes along with Nabokov, and I want to be less an idolator and more of an idol (now that's religiously sound). What I mean is, I don't think any author is perfect, and I want to keep my perspective even while reading things like "only Nabokov could have written this!"

If you're interested in Bend Sinister, let me know and maybe you can help me edit the paper I'm going to write about it (currently I want to do something with personification, but I might end up doing something with windows).

In which I develop a minor unrealizable crush

I saw The Painted Veil at International Cinema the other day, and I really liked it. I'm not sure if I actually liked the story that much - a woman falls in love with her husband after cheating on him - but I loved the soundtrack and the main actor's looks/character (usually I don't go for movie-star looks, but I make an exception in this case?). He's so... sad all the time, but not pathetic - it's like he's choosing to be sad (which I find... curious). Also, the 20s fashion is quite attractive (I mean, really who can resist suspenders?). But I keep wondering, why did he fall in love with that woman in the first place, knowing she was spoiled and not exactly his intellectual equal? Once again I am treating fictional characters as if they are real people... oh well. If you ever find an available guy who looks kind of like this please tell me about him (assuming that he is passably intelligent).

Money's slave

I hate it, but I feel like a slave of money, or at least a servant. Oh you want me to work 3.5 hours on my day off? No I don't have anything planned. Oh you need me now? I can skip the class I like going to. This is seriously annoying. I can't wait until I have a real job where they don't have to know that I have nothing planned most of the time (except, you know, making pancakes, which I felt didn't qualify). Did I mention I hate thinking about money?

Lately I've been noticing that I'm really insecure about my individuality, because I know I'm probably more like other people than I'd like to admit. Maybe that's why I get a kick out of being so nerdy, it shows how I'm different. I mean - maybe not everyone likes modern literature (I can't really imagine why not)? And that's why it bothers me to hear Keane on the radio, because I thought they were this indie band last.fm was recommending to me, but it turns out they're in the same boat with Coldplay (by the way, I downloaded their new album, which was on sale from Amazon today only, and it wasn't half bad, although I still think bands should write their own music).

One of my only recently conscious goals is to become a polymath. I think that's why I like House and Nabokov's novels so much. The thing is, I'm not sure if I like knowing things for the sake of knowing them, or if I like knowing things because someone else doesn't know it. 'Ya know?

Also, I've taken to being annoyed by people in high-paying jobs who think their time is more important than anyone else's. But really, the rest of the world doesn't care! Examples: doctors, lawyers, therapists. I think that's a big reason I don't want to be a therapist - I'd end up being all self-important and used to clients worshiping me, and then I wouldn't be able to interact normally anymore (assuming that I ever interacted normally). Professors can get that way too, but I think they need to protect themselves sometimes from students who don't know how to read (hey look, I'm already on the way to being a self-justified prof). I'd rather be a professor though, because no one actually cares about them (besides you know, creepy students like me), and they get to just do their own thing most of the time.

Actual conversation in front of Smith's

Man with Beret (MwB): You know, people who wear berets are pretty amazing people.
Me (carrying a backpack full of groceries, unlocking my bike): Yep... pretty much
MwB: Where'd you get yours?
Me: I don't know, somewhere on sale for a buck.
MwB: Czechlosovakia.

Suddenly I feel insecure not having some kind of story to go with my beret! Perhaps next time I can make one up. I feel like such a poser.

Also, my firefox crashed and now the built-in spellcheck no longer works. Help?

Quilty

I watched Lolita over the weekend - the Kubrick 1962 version. It's weird, but I found Quilty (center in this snapshot) to be really hilarious, despite his implied depravity. It's strange because I didn't find the actor nearly as funny in Dr. Strangelove or The Pink Panther. I think I liked that he was fooling Humbert all along... I like knowing what others don't know, I appreciate it when I can be smug with someone once in a while. How horrible!

Vanishing

Usually my job isn't too difficult - just be constantly vigilant, take notes, keep track of time, etc. However, every now and then I have to deal with separated people being really petty to each other, and I have to be polite to them while they do it (make copies of their notes to each other, read said notes, etc.). It stresses me out a lot, and sometimes I wish I could say, "yes, your ex is being immature, but so are you for making such a big deal of [parking, clothing, photographs, etc.])." So to make up for having to be polite at work all the time, I may be especially cheeky (I know, I'm cheeky anyway, but now I have an excuse?). I hate how I'm powerless to change anything at work, or if my notes do change something I'll never hear about it. Why can't people just be good to their kids and spouses in the first place?

I feel like I'm constantly doing things yet accomplishing nothing. I'm not sure how this is happening, but I dislike it. I feel like I'm missing something but I don't know what it is. Like a vanishing point, my nebulous goals seem constantly out of reach. I feel like giving up on achieving anything - that the cult of achievement has led me astray, but that I have no where else to go and that I'm stuck with creating goals and falling short of them. Progress is an illusion.

World of Soundtrack

If you were ever searching for a soundtrack but couldn't find it, check World of Soundtrack. Possibly my favorite find of the week (Charade! Also Tabarly).

Nabokov also loved bad movies

"Nabokov's opinion of the movies, was, nevertheless, ambivalent. It is apparent that he had little patience for 'the grotesqueness of cinematic cliche.' Friends described how he would 'single out intentionally an inept American film' and 'literally shake with laughter, to the point where... he would have to leave the hall.' " -The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov

Does this remind anyone of Bad Movie Night?